Warped
by AM-AtLoLevad
Summary: "When you want something for so long, and you want and you want and you want, I guess it almost gets warped because you've wanted it for maybe longer than anybody should ever want anything." - Michael Weatherly. What happens when you get what you want... and it's not what you expect. Can it be fixed?


_This is based on a quote Michael Weatherly made about Tony and Ziva. The Quote is "__When you want something for so long, and you want and you want and you want, I guess it almost gets warped because you've wanted it for maybe longer than __anybody__ should ever want __anything." __ I use it later in the story but not in quotation marks… I just couldn't handle it being that grammatically incorrect lol. So here I am, saying I don't own it and it's a quote. _

After all this time… I thought it would be easier. As I sit here, looking at the woman that I have wanted so long for I can't help but think that this is not how it's suppose to be. She's sitting on the end of the coach reading. As I look at her, my mind wanders to that night, the night she told me she was leaving NCIS.

It had happened so quickly. She told me about wanting to leave, about wanting peace. She wanted to have the freedom to do something new, something that didn't involve bad guys and fighting. I understood but I told her I would miss her. I told her that I couldn't lose her. And then I asked her to stay… and she did.

At first it was an unquenchable fire. Everything was new and exciting. Eight years of pent up emotions and wanting poured out of us. We couldn't get enough of each other.

Then reality set in. It was fine at first and all of the things that set us on edge about each other were suddenly enduring qualities that we found cute and funny and often feigned annoyance at. We had hit our stride… or so I thought.

After a couple of weeks this feeling began to creep in. It started as dullness in my stomach that grew into an emptiness that I couldn't explain. This is what I wanted. This is all I had dreamed about, pined after, and aced for. Why was I not full? It moved to my chest next and settled like an iron weight. I felt like there was a vice around my heart, chocking it out. Shouldn't my heart be aflutter or some other ridiculous word used to describe the light feeling of someone in love? As it made its way through my body, it tied down my limbs and made my body feel like it belonged to someone else. It seeped in to my brain, clouding my mind and emptying my heart. Only then did I know what this was. It was the slow, cold movement of discontentment, disenchantment, and apathy. It was disappointment. My dreams of how things would be had been disillusioned by how things were.

How did we get here? It was the slow realization of reality. I guess we had built this up so much in our minds that nothing could ever live up to our expectations. When you want something for so long, and you want and you want and you want, I guess it almost gets warped because you've wanted it for maybe longer than _anybody_ should ever want _anything. _It's like it had turned into this whole other monster all on its own. The truth is that in the end, it wasn't each other we wanted but our own fantasized versions of each other. We had built these whole other people in our mind and when we turned out to not be those people… it left us wanting and disappointed. Expectancy had turned our love and relationship in to something un-sustainable.

She knows. It's all over her. She is cold and distant. Maybe she feels the same way I do. My apathy and her cool regard have worked their way between us like a wedge, everyday being driven in, deepening the ever-expanding chasm that is growing between us.

I wish we were fighting… fighting would be better than this. Fighting took passion and emotion. Fighting took communication, which is something that we haven't done a lot of lately. It isn't until now that I have begun to understand what was meant by "the opposite of love is not hate, it is apathy." Hate and anger are passions, but apathy… apathy is nothing. It is the slow, soul killing ice that settles at the pit of your stomach and extinguishes the flames.

At this point we only have three choices: we could drop the pretenses, except each other for what and who we are, and try to work this out; we could leave it alone, trying to ignore it and let the cold ice numb us in to oblivion and slowly driving the both of us mad; or we could let go.

I look over at the woman sitting not two feet away from me. She feels miles way. It almost feels like I can't see her anymore. Do I want this? Do I want her? Not the illusion of her but her, the real her. Not the one in my head, the one here, sitting on the coach in sweats.

I have made my decision.

How do I start this? What do I do next? Before I can really think it through I reach out and do the first thing I can think of to get a reaction out of her and knock the book out of her hands. The book hits the floor and slides under the coffee table. The look on her face is incredulous.

"Why did you do that? What are you thinking?" Her voice is strong.

"We need to talk," I hear my self saying. My tone is feigned anger and my face matches.

"What could you possibly be angry about?" She is asking me skeptically, anger rising in her face and eyes quickly. "What makes you think you have a right to do that even if you are angry?"

The fight is nothing but a made up excuse to express emotions. It starts with yelling at each other over stupid things that don't even mater.

"Tony, why are you being so childish?"

"Oh yes, I am always so childish! Maybe that's just the way I am Ziva! You knew that! What? Did you think I wouldn't be? That the moment this became real I would just suddenly stop, suddenly become someone else? Because I have to tell you, you're not exactly what I expected either!" I spit this at her and immediately I am regretting my tone. This stupid fight just became real.

Ziva sits down on the coach heavily. She looks defeated. "I… don't know what to do."

She looks up at me, her eyes pleading. Pleading for what, I don't know.

"What do you want Ziva? Do you want me, the real me? Do you want to try to work past this?"

"I do not know. What about you? Do you think that it is worth this Tony? Do you think that we could have something past this?" Her voice is quiet, unsure.

"I think we owe it too ourselves to find out. I think it might be worth at try," I say, looking in to her eyes.

She hasn't said anything for a long time. Her eyes haven't left mine. The way she is looking at me makes me feel like she is boring in to my soul. She knows me better than anyone. And I know her. Somewhere along the way we have lost each other in our own fantasies. We need to remember why we wanted each other in the first place.

After a long time she finally responds with one little word, "how?"

I sit back down on the other end of the coach and turn to face here, "Let's just go back. Remember what it was that brought up these feelings in the first place. Take each other for what we are, where we are. Let's let go of the fantasies and expectations and just be us."

A look has come across her eyes and she smiles at me. Her eyes are lost to me for a moment, remembering something. Her eyes have met mine again and the look that I am finding there tells me everything I need to know. I am suddenly realizing that there is too much distance between us, emotionally and physically. I slide towards her. When I get to her I reach up and cup her face in my hand.

"I think I can do that," she breathes as she lifts up to kiss me.

Her lips are soft and sweet. As we break that first kiss all the emotions of our last hour wash over us. Our second kiss is a crash against each other as we both let out all of the emotions that we didn't know we had. For the moment, all of our disappointments are slipping away as we hunger for each other for the first time in a long time. I know that this is not the end of this struggle, but merely the beginning. We have a long way to go, but this is the first step. It is the first step toward a long journey back to each other.

_I originally intended to leave this with them walking away… but my mind had different ideas. I like it better this way. That's it for this one. Until next time. – Amanda _


End file.
